Just purchased the Shapeoko 3 XXL last week. Assembled in about 3 hours (mostly by my son) and then we were cutting 1/4 inch aluminum for a few of his projects. Search youtube for Winston Moy, he has some great info on it, he made the decision easy with his videos. Ordered without a router/spindle. Plan was to order an air cooled spindle from Ebay, but S3 XXL arrived in two days and we wanted to start making dust immediately so we purchased the Makita one from HDepot for $89. Working through a few hiccups (mostly software) but overall pleased with the purchase. 32 in x 32 in work area, 45 in x 41 in footprint.

Just purchased the Shapeoko 3 XXL last week. Assembled in about 3 hours (mostly by my son) and then we were cutting 1/4 inch aluminum for a few of his projects. Search youtube for Winston Moy, he has some great info on it, he made the decision easy with his videos. Ordered without a router/spindle. Plan was to order an air cooled spindle from Ebay, but S3 XXL arrived in two days and we wanted to start making dust immediately so we purchased the Makita one from HDepot for $89. Working through a few hiccups (mostly software) but overall pleased with the purchase. 32 in x 32 in work area, 45 in x 41 in footprint.

- Clue32

I’d really love to hear your thoughts on a non-router spindle. How much did it cost and do you like it? How difficult was it to set up/use?

I have the xxl and think its a great machine for the average hobbyist. You will need better software imo because carbide create that they give free with the machine lacks a lot of features and a cnc is really only as good as the software being used to generate your work. I may be selling mine soon to upgrade to a more industrial unit as I use mine extensively and I need something that I can ramp up my feed rates on which requires something with lead screws vs belts. I use mine daily for 4-8 hours depending on the load of work but for a person that uses it a few times a week then its perfect!

I had the original smaller shapeoko3 and upgraded to the XXL kit. The original build was kind of tedious, but I believe they assemble all of the plates for you now which should make the overall assembly a breeze. My biggest complaint w/ the Shapeoko is the EMI issue. They’ve sent me 3 different versions of boards, all still cause the board to lost connection one the dust collector starts whirling. I finally just scratched off a little paint on the frame and used the spiral wire in the hose to ground it to the dust collector. Other than that, no real issues and I’ve put 100s of hours on my unit.